Fox News’ Martha MacCallum questioned Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Sunday over accusations by former President Donald Trump that Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary was stolen from Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Oz narrowly leads Republican opponent David McCormick in the state’s primary race, according to the New York Times. Trump claimed that Tuesday’s primary was rigged.
“Dr. Oz should declare victory. It makes it much harder for them to cheat with the ballots that they ‘just happened to find,’” Trump posted to Truth Social.
MacCallum asked McDaniel whether she thinks “Dr. Oz should go ahead and declare victory” as Trump suggested.
McDaniel dodged the question, instead focusing on whether the state’s voting laws are just.
“What I will say is the Republican legislature in Pennsylvania put forward an election integrity bill that Gov. [Tom] Wolf vetoed earlier this year,” McDaniel said. “If that bill had passed, we would not be in this situation. President Trump is right, and others … that we should not have no excuse absentee voting, this influx of mail-in voting is clearly showing that systems are not ready for that and Pennsylvania is a case of that right now.”
MacCallum pushed McDaniel on the topic again and asked whether Trump would support McCormick should he officially be declared the winner. (RELATED: SNEAD: 2020’s Nightmare Election Process Has Come Back To Haunt Pennsylvania. Here’s What Needs To Change)
“I think every Republican’s going to be supporting the Republican nominee in these states, including President Trump,” McDaniel said. “The RNC … do not want to see Fetterman, a Democratic socialist, the nominee on the Pennsylvania ticket, to be the senator. We know what’s at stake with the balance of power, we see the disaster that our country is going through under Joe Biden, so we’re going to rally around. Primaries are difficult, they are challenging, and then we come together afterwards and focus on who we really need to defeat, which is the Democrat.”
The state’s primary race is still too close to call, with roughly 1,100 ballots separating Oz and McCormick. Trump endorsed Oz, but several conservatives have expressed concern that Oz is not conservative enough.